Paradise Falls (Paradise Falls #1-5)(29)

The window!

If she could get out the window, then she could climb onto the porch roof and slide down to the street. She could run, or at least get to her bike. The window wasn’t far. It took all she had to ignore the pain in her tailbone and flaring ankle to drag herself towards the window. She had her hand on the windowsill, she just had to grab it and pull herself up.

Almost there.

With a grunt of effort, she pulled and the hot, humid night air met her face. Another second.

Grayson’s hand twisted around in her hair.

Jennifer’s shriek burned her throat. Her scalp burned as Grayson yanked her back into the room. His other hand closed around her throat. Wrenched to her feet, Grayson shoved her onto the bed hard enough to push the mattress off the box spring. He was on top of her. His knee pinned her back, and his fist ripped hair from her scalp as he pushed her face down into the bed.

The comforter smothered all the air. She couldn’t breathe, but she couldn’t stop screaming. It felt like her lungs would burn themselves up and burst out of her throat. Her heart beat so fast it was just a buzz in her chest. It felt like dying, like an ice pick was ramming through her chest.

“Shut up, you goddamn bitch,” Grayson snarled. “Hold still.”

Go with him. Cooperate. If he took her outside, then someone would see or hear them. She could get loose and run away. He pulled her onto her feet and backhanded her. Pain exploded from her jaw and the world went all tilty-turny again and he pulled her towards the broken door by the hair.

The lights went out.

Grayson froze. Jennifer went stone still, holding his wrist in her hands, trying to stop the ripping at her scalp.

Grayson let go of her and turned towards the direction of another person moving in the house. The pain in her tailbone screamed as she hit the floor, crushing everything else out until she gathered herself up enough to scramble into the closet.

Grayson struggled with another man.

As if it could keep her safe, Jennifer wrapped herself in one of Franklin’s old shirts. The other man escaped Grayson’s grip. He spun around and his kick to Grayson’s back sent him against the wall.

Grayson produced an automatic pistol from under his coat. The stranger pointed and the gun flew from Grayson’s hand. A knife stuck his palm. Blood sprayed on the white plaster wall. Grayson howled and grabbed at his hand, then bull rushed the stranger, who put his hands on Grayson’s shoulders and rolled right over him, adding force to the charge that sent Grayson into the wall.

Plaster cracked in a ragged spider web where Grayson’s head connected with the wall. Grayson stumbled against the other wall, his face a bloody mask from a big cut on his forehead and his broken nose. Black blood gushed from his misshapen nose and hung from his jaw in thick streams. He looked like a demon when his lips pulled back in fury.

Grayson threw himself at the stranger, who caught his arm by the wrist and elbow. The sound was almost as awful as Grayson’s scream, like someone taking a handful of wet rotten wood and just cracking it with all their might. Bent at all the wrong angles, Grayson’s arm went limp and he stumbled into the window. His head went through it before he stopped to reach for his fallen gun. The stranger was already moving.

He brought the old window sash down on Grayson’s head, pulled it up, and brought it down again. Grayson went still and slumped to the floor. The stranger calmly picked up the gun, checked it, and slipped it into his belt behind his back. Grayson’s chest rose and fell in slow motion.

Jennifer was somewhere else. Her head was throbbing, her back was a red hot column of pain, and she must have twisted her ankle again, but all that was distant, raw information she couldn’t process.

It wasn’t Grayson’s hand she felt on her hair, it was Elliot’s. She fell into the past. The smell of Everclear and cheap fruit punch on Elliot’s breath filled her nostrils. He forced her down on the bed, angrily yanked on her hair as she squirmed and struggled and tried to peel his hands away but he yanked her jeans down. The buttons scraped over her skin as he tore at her underwear and threw his weight on her. His hand worked against her back as he undid his fly. Elliot’s voice in her ear. Shut up. You’ll like it.

“Jennifer?”

“Franklin?” she croaked.

Franklin came in the room, screaming at his brother. What are you doing? Leave her alone!

“No, it’s me. I’ve got you.”

Her chest hurt more than her back, her heart tightened so hard it would explode. She was sure she was dying.

Every word was a struggle. “I’m h-having a heart attack.”

He picked her up like she weighed nothing at all, and shoved the dresser out of the way with a hard kick. Her head hurt. Was her nose bleeding?

She was burning up, but she shivered like she’d dropped into a pool of ice water. Jennifer clawed at the fabric and held on for dear life.

Her room was trashed, the furniture destroyed, her bed torn up, and someone was picking her up, but that wasn’t real, that wasn’t there. She was seventeen years old and she would always be seventeen years old. There was nowhere else, only hurtful hands on her skin, bruising her arms and legs, the scrape of Elliot’s nails as he raked them over her skin and tore at her clothes, but this time there was no Franklin, no one to fix it, no one to make it go away.

“He’s here,” she moaned. “He’s here. He’s here.”